


Red Pushing Down on the Green

by orphan_account



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Body Image, Discussions of abuse, F/M, First Love, Hurt/Comfort, Pining, Stockholm Syndrome, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-10
Updated: 2019-01-10
Packaged: 2019-10-07 23:48:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17375498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Jester talks Nott into a tattoo, and Nott tells her about one of her other kisses.





	Red Pushing Down on the Green

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Dodie's _If I'm Being Honest _which was a massive inspiration for this story. From the moment I heard the song, I've been unable to hear it as anything besides a song about Nott being in love.__

“Nott, can I give you a tattoo?”

It shouldn’t be a surprise that she’s asking—Nott has been one of Jester’s greatest advocates in all her creative endeavours. Somehow, though, the possibility of Jester attempting to incorporate her in her latest hobby had slipped her mind.

Nott doesn’t respond; the frigid cold of the evening on the open sea sends her fingers to sleep and slows her brain. Instead, she quizzically stares at Jester’s radiant grin.

“You’ve seen my drawings—I’m really good. I want to give you a cool tattoo.”

She lowers her head from Jester’s gaze. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t even know what I’d get.”

Jester does not seem satisfied with that response. “That’s more reason why I should do it—I have great ideas, you know?”

Nott attempts to keep herself turned away from Jester, but as quick as Nott is, Jester keeps moving to get a better look at her.

“I don’t think it would work?”

Jester frowns.

“I have, you know, weird gross goblin skin and stuff.” Nott tries not to let her voice expose her vulnerability. “It’s not pretty and smooth like your skin—it wouldn’t work.”

“Orly has lots of tattoos and his skin is different to mine. Lots of people with lots of different kinds of skin have tattoos. And your skin  _ isn’t _ gross.”

Nott fidgets; she’s not escaping this as simply as she’d assumed.

“I don’t really think it’s the same—“

“Please, Nott.” It’s a mistake to glance at Jester as the minute she sees her, Nott comes to the realisation that she's already let herself get talked into this even whilst she protests.

Nott sighs. “I don’t want to do it here.” She looks around the deck, and whilst it’s nowhere near bustling after nightfall, there are sufficient crew around for Nott to feel exposed.

Jester nods and her face brightens. “Okay, okay, do you want me to tattoo you in my room, or we can use yours and Caleb’s?”

“Er, my room please.”

Jester grabs her kit and reaches for Nott's hand, guiding her across the boards and down below deck. When they arrive at Nott’s room, Caleb’s sat on the floorboards, thick volume in hand.

“Hey Caleb, you need to leave because I need to tattoo Nott.”

Caleb frowns. Perplexed, he looks to Nott.

“Okay,” he says haltingly. “You want a tattoo?”

"Er, yeah. I guess."

Jester rolls her eyes somewhat as she regards Caleb as a challenge. “See, she said she does. And it's really cool—the tattoo is secret.”

“Secret? But you’re telling me that you’re going to—"

“What the tattoo is  _ of _ is super secret,” Jester clarifies, with a hint of playful condescension, only enough to get under Caleb’s skin a little. “Not even Nott knows yet,” she stage-whispers, as her wide smile beams.

Caleb looks to Nott once more. “You’re letting Jester tattoo you and you don’t know what the tattoo will be of?”

Jester answers before Nott can respond: “Yeah, she doesn’t know what she’d get, and I have lots of great ideas so she’s going to get one of those.”

Caleb closes the tome as he clambers to his feet. “Alright then, I’ll make myself scarce for the next hour or so but I do plan on sleeping in my own bed tonight. I look forward to seeing your work.” 

“It’s going to be so good.”

Caleb makes eye contact with Nott for the final time as he leaves the room with the gentlest smirk on his face. “Enjoy your tattoo, Nott.” There’s a rare moment of levity in his tone—somehow sensing Nott’s knotted tension. “And Jester, I hope you don't tattoo our friend with some of the subject matter you're so renowned for in your other works.”

Jester and Nott snort as the door closes behind Caleb.

“I feel like I do need to make this clear in case Caleb has given you any ideas: I really do not want a tattoo of a dick.”

Jester laughs and reassures Nott as she sets up her inks. While she watches Jester prepare, Nott tastes fresh anxiety.

“I don’t think I’ll be able to deal with the pain.” It isn't that at all, but she’s out of ideas to dissuade her.

Jester nods sympathetically as she rummages around in the haversack. “Don’t worry, I can help with that. It’s not that painful anyway.”

“You don’t even have any tattoos.”

“Not yet, but Orly hasn’t given me one of his sparkly tattoos yet. And anyway I’ve tattooed a lot of people, I know what I’m talking about.”

“You’ve tattooed four.”

“That’s enough to know.”

Jester picks out her medicinal kit and begins to pull out some herbs. She chats idly and mixes a concoction together with an overly scented minty ointment that makes Nott’s nose tickle.

“I promise you it won’t hurt; I made something that will make it all numb. You won’t feel a thing. Now come on—be brave, Nott.” There’s a hint of a dare to Jester’s voice, and Nott lets herself be pulled in.

Nott sighs as she yanks off her cloak, handing Jester her left arm.

“I don’t think we should do the arm.”

“Arm’s pretty standard, isn’t it? Where else did you have in mind?”

“Well, your arms are pretty small because you’re small, and I want a  _ little  _ more space.” Jester’s accent curves around the word for emphasis.

Nott’s eyes go wide. “I don’t want a big one or anything.”

“It’s not big—just don't want to limit the space to only your arm.” Unconsciously, Jester lays her hand on Nott’s arm; her arm is small enough that Jester’s hand circles it entirely. It would be a remarkably modest canvas for any tattoo.

Nott nods and loosens her arm out of her shirt, freeing the back of her shoulder for Jester’s art whilst she bites down the discomfort of having skin visible—the true reason she didn’t want this.

Whatever salve Jester has made seems to be doing the job; Nott can barely feel the pressure of the needle against her skin, and there’s no detectable pain. She shudders a little at the coolness of Jester’s hands but she allows herself to relax into it.

“See, you tattoo fine. Your skin is lovely.” Jester’s voice is remarkably distant from its usual character as she further concentrates on the tattoo.

Only the soft sound of Jester’s working and the lapping of the waves is the soundtrack to the enterprise. The taut coils of Nott’s limbs slacken and then the pressure of the needle feels even gentler.

“You told me that you kissed someone once?” Jester starts after a stretch of linework.

Nott nods. “I mean, I’ve kissed more than one.”

“You didn’t tell me that.”

“I’m telling you now.”

Jester sighs. “How come you’ve kissed so many people? I’ve seen you kiss Caleb or, like, Kiri, but I haven’t seen you, you know…?” she trails into a suggestive tone. “Did you kiss that Jeza person?”

Nott doesn’t answer for a time and Jester doesn’t push it—she allows Nott to settle again from the surprise of the question into the quiet of the room and the friendly touch of Jester at her side.

“I met him when I was with my clan. He was a nice man—”

“—so you did kiss him?” 

“Kind of. Yes, I suppose, once.” Nott’s voice is thick. “And his name was Yeza.”

“He was this guy I was supposed to kill. The torturer had no more need for him so it was my job to—” Nott performs a throat-slitting gesture as she grimaces. “He was very understanding about the whole thing. He knew what I had to do before I went in there. He kept asking if  _ I _ was okay,” Nott says incredulously.

Jester doesn’t speak and focuses on the tattoo.

“So, I decided I’d stand up to the others. And their reaction was...painful. But I told them I’d get more information from him.”

“That’s really nice that you saved him.”

“No.” Nott’s expression is firm.

“Uh-huh, that was super nice.”

“No, I…” Nott struggles to find the phrasing.

“I didn’t save him to be nice. I wanted to, but I would have been too afraid otherwise. I stopped them because I liked him. He made living there bearable—he was so interesting, and he actually wanted to talk to  _ me _ . He was smart, and he taught me all kinds of stuff that I’d never learnt about before. And he was very handsome…” Nott rushes the final sentence together as a clumsy add-on as it feels like a shameful admission. 

“Over time, he started to—I don’t know how to describe it. He used to flirt, I guess? No one had flirted with me or anything, Gods why would they—look at me. Eventually, I started to let myself enjoy it. I encouraged him...” Nott feels her cheeks colour with shame at the memories as her ears droop with regret. “Afterwards I'd feel terrible and I'd get drunk.”

Jester frowns as she continues working on the shading. “Didn’t you like it? Did he take it too far…?” Purposefully, Jester treads very lightly with her questioning.

“No. It wasn’t that I didn’t like it. I liked it a lot. It’s just not right, is it?”

“Why isn’t it, Nott?” Jester’s cool hands stroke down her arm gently; a tiny gesture of support.

Nott swallows. “Because he was the clan’s prisoner. I was taking advantage. He didn't actually like me that way.” The scar of that memory doesn’t quite sting anymore, but Nott has to stop herself flinching as she waits for a shock of pain that never comes.

“The night that I left my clan, I’d been told that this was it and I had to kill him; he’d given us everything he knew. He didn’t know why I was down there. I told everyone to leave because I didn’t want them to watch—I didn’t want them to enjoy seeing him hurt. But all he knew was we were alone down in the cells, and we were never  _ alone _ in the cells.” Nott instinctively curls down smaller onto herself—into the hollow nothing of her stomach—and Jester has to pull back the needle to stop her making a mess of the colouring.

“He kissed me. I kissed him back. And then I...panicked. It was gross and I was acting like a monster who took advantage before I was going to have to murder him.”

Jester rests her chin on Nott’s shoulder, pulling her arms around her tight. "You’re okay now, you’re free,” she soothes. “Your clan sound— I don’t even know how you must have felt being forced to hurt someone you cared about." She squeezes Nott close again.

“After I stopped, I couldn’t stop panicking and I knew I couldn’t go through with it even if the clan were going to kill me,” Nott says eventually, her voice dead and flat. “So I got real drunk. And I created a distraction so we could run away.”

Jester chuckles softly into Nott’s hair, lightening the mood. “You shot someone it the butt.”

“I did. I shot one of my clan in the butt.” Nott catches the corners of her mouth lift in spite of herself. “It was pretty funny.”

Jester places a peck to Nott’s cheek. “It does sound pretty funny. And you set him free; you did the right thing. It must have been super scary and you did it.”

“He ran the other way after... I hear that people in bad situations sometimes do things to encourage people in charge to treat them a little better. I dunno if it's always conscious, but if you're trapped it must make everything...bearable. I got caught up in the hope that someone like him would ever— It's silly really."

Jester rocks Nott. “You're not silly. No matter what, Yeza—” Nott instinctively softens at his name “—he knows that you cared about him so much you were willing to risk your life to set him free.”

“I hope.” Nott rubs the centre of her palms; there’s a ghastly numbness there that comes on when she thinks about this too long. “I—I don’t even know if he made it. I hope—”

She does hope. Though Nott is well aware that she could be sending packages to a dead man. She pours hours of deliberation into her letters before she gets drunk and writes things she’d be embarrassed to read back when she isn’t half-cut. Nott also sends money and pretty things—baubles that remind her of the collections she used to show him. It’s a silly thought that she’d be able to persuade him to respond with goofy gifts and her drunken ramblings.

Deep down, Nott knows all of the cheeky comments and compliments (the ones that still send her cheeks colouring when something reminds her of him) were never sincere. The idiotic little thoughts she used to have about him living far away—in a home rather than a cell and that halfling woman cuddled into Yeza's arms—that is not Nott. Even if she could persuade Caleb to fix the grotesque skin that imprisons her, it doesn't change the fact that his feelings had to be imagined: fabricated for an ulterior purpose. Nott knows that she's good, deep down. She isn’t like the rest of her clan. But she has no way of persuading him that she isn't that monster.

As she wipes her face again, Nott looks to Jester—chin still resting on her shoulder. “Anyway, weren’t you supposed to be giving me a tattoo? You made enough fuss—you may as well finish it.”

Jester smiles and wipes excess ink from the site with her handkerchief. “I’m done actually. You wanna see?”

Nott isn’t sure what she anticipated as she looks over her shoulder at the small hand mirror that Jester carries. Along the green of Nott’s back now lies the image of two small stems of purple lilacs, joining at the base with blooms that now twist away from one another. Nott blinks a little at the sight. It’s beautiful. 

The contrast of the flowers against her skin surprises her; it wouldn’t be able to work in such a way if she didn’t have the skin she so hated, the mottled green of her shoulder opposing the work's lilac hues. It truly is beautiful.

“I—” The aborted words fall short on her lips, and Jester smiles at Nott’s mesmerisation.

“It’s not a sparkly one as Orly hasn’t shown me how to those yet, but I can give you a sparkly one when I know how.”

Nott nods before wrapping her arms around Jester; her shorter goblin arms are unable to circle Jester’s frame the way she longs. “It’s perfect,” she murmurs against the cinnamon and seawater scent of Jester’s hair. “Thank you.”

“You really like it?” The tiniest of Jester’s mask of insecurity slips.

“I do, I really do.”

Jester moves her hand to the small of Nott’s back. “Are you going to show Caleb now?” She hesitates a moment. “I totally understand if you don’t want to I get that it’s not super easy to show everyone and I know you don’t like showing lots of your skin anyway so I wouldn’t mind at all and I—”

“I will definitely show Caleb. It’s worth making an exception for. Thank you, Jester.”

Jester beams. “You’re welcome.” She pulls away and starts putting her tattooing and medicinal kits. “And hey, I was right: I promised that you wouldn’t feel a thing.”


End file.
